These 15 dog breeds are the most likely to run away from home

Leave the backyard gate open, miss that hole they've been digging, or don't hold a leash tightly enough, and you could have a furry escaped convict.

But some canines are more adventurous than others: While one dog psyches himself out of his chance to run away, another will bound toward it like a freight train.

To find out if some dog breeds may be more prone to getting lost than others, Business Insider asked Whistle — a company that makes a GPS and activity-tracking dog collar — for help, and it looked at data gathered from the roughly 150,000 Americans who've used its products. (Like all data, this set has limitations — see our notes at the end.)

Their lost-dog data comes from the Whistle app's option to start a "tracking event" — a feature that's purpose-built to help locate lost dogs with real-time GPS signal.

Here are the 15 dog breeds most likely to run away from their owners in the US, ranked by median tracking events per month. (When the median was identical, we used the mean as a secondary ranking method.)

Australian shepherd owners typically lose their dog about 0.9 times a month.​​​​​​

Photo: Rhonda Venezia Photographer via Getty Images

#14: Bernese Mountain Dog

Bernes mountain dog owners typically lose their dog about 0.9 times a month.

Photo: Martin Ruegner via Getty Images

#13: Treeing Walker Coonhound

Treeing walker coonhound owners typically lose their dog about 0.9 times a month.

Photo: ExcitingTravelsGoNow via Getty Images

#12: Standard Poodle

Standard poodle owners typically lose their dog about 0.9 times a month.

Photo: ivanastar via Getty Images

#11: American Bulldog

American bulldog owners typically lose their dog about 0.9 times a month.

Photo: Carolyn A McKeone via Getty Images

#10: Great Dane

Great Dane owners typically lose their dog about 1.2 times a month.

Photo: Jupiterimages via Getty Images

#9: Saint Bernard

Saint Bernard owners typically lose their dog about 1.2 times a month.

Photo: Danita Delimont via Getty Images

#8: Belgian Malinois

Belgian Malinois owners typically lose their dog about 1.2 times a month.

Photo: Ozgur Donmaz via Getty Images

#7: Black and Tan Coonhound

Black and tan coonhoud owners typically lose their dog about 1.2 times a month.

Photo: WilleeCole via Getty Images

#6: Pit Bull Mix

Pit bull mix owners typically lose their dog about 1.2 times a month.

Photo: Paul Park via Getty Images

#5: Bluetick Coonhound

Bluetick coonhound owners typically lose their dog about 1.2 times a month.

Photo: Avondell via Getty Images

#4: Catahoula Leopard Dog

Catahoula leopard dog owners typically lose their dog about 1.2 times a month.

Photo: mountinez via Getty Images

#3: Great Pyrenees

Great Pyrenees owners typically lose their dog about 1.2 times a month.

Photo: John P Kelly via Getty Images

#2: Bloodhound

Bloodhound owners typically lose their dog about 1.5 times a month.

Photo: Danita Delimont via Getty Images

#1: Anatolian Shepherd

Anatolian shepherd owners typically lose their dog about 2.13 times a month.

Photo: Scott Hailstone via Getty Images

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Note: Dogs under 10 pounds are not well represented on Whistle (the GPS collar is usually too big for them) — and little dogs fit through holes in fences much more easily. Users can also ignore an in-app warning to track their dogs and use the feature recreationally, e.g. to log the distance of a hike through the woods. (However, Whistle told Business Insider that it filtered out most of these events out by finding those where an owner and dog are in roughly the same location.) Self-selection may inflate results, too, since many people who buy Whistle collars do so to keep tabs of problematic dogs. And correlation isn't necessarily causation: Owners who are more likely to create situations in which their dogs run away may gravitate toward these breeds.